Kevin Magnussen's Austrian GP Q&A

Looking at the positives of the unexpected time away from racing you’ve experienced, what stands out for you personally?

“For me personally, I’d say just the fact I was able to stay in the one place for more than a few weeks and sleep in the same bed, wake up and have the same thing for breakfast, basically get into daily routines that I haven’t had for years. That’s something that will be a positive when I stop traveling all the time – one day. That said, it doesn’t really make up for the fact we haven’t been racing. So, there have been positives, but they haven’t outweighed all the negatives of the situation. I’d also say it was a learning opportunity, you get to know yourself a little better when you have all this time on your hands. I didn’t know I’d enjoy this kind of daily routine as much as I did for example. I knew I’d miss driving but I didn’t realize just how much I miss driving. It’s been good to feel that, I knew I would, but I’ve always been busy racing.”

There’s been a lot of talk about ‘preparedness’ with regards to the Austrian Grand Prix. Where do you stand on how ready you are to get back behind the wheel and compete – both mentally and physically?

“I don’t feel too nervous about it. To give an example, in this time where we haven’t been racing, I’ve picked up karting again. I’ve been away from karting for a lot of years. It really didn’t take me any time to get back into it and be on the pace again. It’s really been about 12 years since I was active in karting, with the odd occasion in-between in a kart. It only took a couple of runs and I was totally back into it. You never really forget it. It would have been better to be doing it every day, but motorsport isn’t a sport like that.

“You can’t compare it with tennis or golf – those athletes, if they missed a few months, would struggle going straight into a tournament if up against players who were training every day. In Formula One, nobody trains every day in the car, so I guess that’s what makes the difference – we’re all used to jumping straight in with not too much practice and getting on the pace. It’s the same for everyone so it’s not that big a factor I think.”

Do you feel back-to-back races at the Red Bull Ring provides a valuable opportunity to benchmark the performance of the VF-20?

“I don’t really know, it’s a good question. I don’t think it’s going to be a benefit or a disadvantage. You of course learn more about the car with every track you go to, with different corner speeds, conditions, temperatures, tarmac and stuff like that. In that way, we’ll learn slightly less, but it’s going to be good just to get a read on where we stand compared to the other teams and to get racing again.”

How much of a buzz do you get from the fans on a Grand Prix weekend and how do you try and replicate that acknowledging that we head into a period of ‘closed-door’ races without fans on-site?

“There’s no way to replicate it. It’ll be very quiet and weird with no fans on-site. It is what it is, and we’ll just have to try and make the best of it. We’ll aim to have good, entertaining races to show on television. The atmosphere will obviously be different, not as good, but I’m personally very excited to get back in the car and get back to racing. I hope the fans will be able to have fun watching us on the telly.”